The Curse
When Maggie first mentioned that she was thinking about cutting her hair I thought she was crazy.
Us Callaway girls never cut our hair. It was our biggest pride, our most beautiful feature. Our hair was gorgeous shade of raven black. Sleek, silky always free of tangles and it complemented our olive skin perfectly. It was a tradition for the women in our family never to cut our hair. Sometimes when Maggie and I would sleep over at her house, Grandma Felicity would tell us about the curse that was believed to have been stowed upon us Callaway women.
When ever Grandmother flipped her long black hair over her shoulder we knew she had a marvelous story in store for us. When we were little, Mag and I used to perch on her lap aware of Grandma’s every move hoping she would flip her hair (the strange thing about our hair was that even though we never cut it, it never grew past our waists and it was remarkably light for such beautiful thick hair) for my sister and I loved to hear stories and we both knew our Grandmother told the best.
We would have begged her to tell us one of her stories, but our Grandmother was not one to be trifled with. If we whined, cried or begged with her in earshot she would not only deny us whatever it was that we wanted, but also ignore us for the rest of the day.
To be ignored by our Grandmother is a horrible thing for she was such an a interesting person and every moment with her was precious due to the little time our mother allowed us to spend with her (my Mother and my Grandmother have never gotten along well). That particular night Grandma was in a story telling mood because she flipped her dark raven colored hair right away. “What story would my girls liked to hear tonight?” Grandma would ask.
Mag and I didn’t even bother to answer her because we knew we’d only be wasting our breath. Grandma would pick a story and tell us it in her own way in her own time.
“How about the tale of your Great Grandmother’s Great Grandmother?” she’d ask.
“Oh, yes Grandma do tell us!” Maggie and I would cry, for that was our favorite tale.
“Maggie, Fair! Not so loud Mia’s sleeping!”
Grandma said, pointing to the snowy white cat snoozing on the chair.
And so she begin to tell us the tale of the curse that was bestowed upon our Great Grandmother’s Great Grandmother.
“Eleanora Callaway was beautiful. Everyone said so. And it was true. Eleanora had soft olive skin, shining green eyes and long delicate fingers.” Grandmother told us.
“But her most beautiful feature was….” our Grandmother continued.
“Her silky raven black, never tangled, hair,” my sister and I finished in unison, knowing the story by heart and loving every word.
“That’s right. Her hair. Almost all of her sixteen years were spent being praised for her beauty. And when she wasn’t being praised she was busy perfecting her beauty. Combing her raven black hair, finding the most fashionable dress to suit her apple core skinny frame, shoving her already perfectly small feet into even smaller heels, tightening her already hard to breath corset, on and on. To Eleanora she could never be beautiful enough. There would always be a girl who appeared more glamorous than she. Eleanora found herself always wishing for more beauty.
And not long after that she became not only the most
beautiful but also the most vain. Eleanora soon decided she needed to solve her problem, she would go to the town witch seeking a spell to make her always the most beautiful girl in the world. The town witch did not usually see people with a problem as small as not being beautiful enough, she usually only saw people who were close to dying. But Eleanora thought she could negotiate with Leeona (the wise woman),” Grandmother recited.
“Grandmother, Fair is squashing me!” Maggie cried.
It was true. This part of the story had always spooked me. Especially at when it was being told at night. For some reason I always seemed to imagine Leeona coming to our doorstep shouting at us “I warned your Great Grandmother! But did she listen? NO! She only wanted to be beautiful!” I had climbed up upon my big sister’s lap hoping for comfort.
Grandmother seemed to know how I felt.
“Fair, stop sitting on poor Maggie! Come here child, come over to this side and I’ll make you nice and cozy,” Grandmother said soothingly.
I moved over to Grandmother and with that she continued her the tale of our infamous Great grandmother’s Great grandmother.
“So one stormy night Elenora made her way up Shinning Hill, towards the wise woman’s house.
Lightening clashed and thunder boomed as if warning Eleanora of her cursed fate. But nothing could stop her now. Your Great Grandmother’s Great Grandmother walked on, her face expressionless, as if her spirit was gone and only her perfect little body walked on.”
I shivered at the thought of my zombie-like Great Grandmother’s Great Grandmother walking up Shinning Hill on the night of a storm.
“Eleanora reached the old witch’s shack on top of Shinning Hill and knocked on the shack door four times, steadily. The door swung open as soon as Eleanora had finished knocking the fourth knock,” Grandmother continued.
“There stood the witch, Leeona, her scraggly white hair piled high atop her head, her pale skin seemed to shine in the stormy light of the full moon. Her eyeballs looked almost white, the iris was such a washed out yellow. She stood leaning on a crooked stick of cane, a cloak as dark as the night itself was draped around her fragile body. When Eleanora tried to peer into the shack she saw that nothing but darkness greeted her in a eerie silence,” Grandmother told us.
I peered out the window as Grandmother described Leeona. Grandma Felicity’s cottage is surrounded by fields of lavender. In the daytime, Maggie and I use this field to our advantage and play all kinds of games within it. But at nighttime…… well that’s a different story. In the bedroom Maggie and I share when we stay the night, my bed faces a large window overlooking the lavender fields. As I said before, in the day this is a great view. But in the late hours of the night long after Maggie and Grandmother have fallen into dreamland, I swear I’ve seen Leeona out there, cackling at me and waving her cane around!
To Be Continued....
